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UK. EU. Yes? No? Referendum 23 June.


yoshi

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If we need positives out of this, it would be the fact that UK will survive after a small bump. It is still very strong and in about ten years would look back and not be fussed at all...But the effect on Europe will be devestating. This is the true fear.

That's what it looks like from here.

The crucial element in this respect is going to be the response of the EU leadership, particularly given the clear divisions that are now opening up with politicians from Poland, the Czech Republic and Austria now leading the demands for reform. To my mind, Mr Juncker, who has faced calls to resign today, and his colleagues must now accept that their dream of full political union is dead. Their focus now, whether we stay or not, should be on reforming the organisation so that it is fit to face the challenges of the 21st century and not the 20th. If they do that, then I still maintain there is a chance to persuade the British people to reverse its decision. But if they don't, history may well come to judge this referendum as the beginning of the end of the EU.

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Well, our football team certainly doesn't! Just the icing on the cake in a truly 'great' week for England! <_<:rolleyes:

Let's be real here though, England's football team hasn't been a real factor in international matches in decades lol. No way in hell they would have won this event, but it is rather shocking they lost to Iceland!

So just saw this article. Apparently there is renewed interest in Australia to leave the Commonwealth because of the Brexit vote. Highly doubt anything will come of it before Northern Ireland and Scotland decide what to do from here on out. But hell, you never know!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/27/brexit-boosts-calls-for-australia-to-leave-the-commonwealth/

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So just saw this article. Apparently there is renewed interest in Australia to leave the Commonwealth because of the Brexit vote. Highly doubt anything will come of it before Northern Ireland and Scotland decide what to do from here on out. But hell, you never know!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/27/brexit-boosts-calls-for-australia-to-leave-the-commonwealth/

Nothing will come of it at all...

Peter Fitzsimmons is a popular and lovable raconteur and storyteller...Yes he is part of the Republic movement but definitely not in a negative way.

Australia will decide in its own sweet time when to move the Union flag off theirs...Just as NZ had a referendum earlier this year to change its flag as well.

Leaving the Commonwealth will only have an effect on sports...Other than that, it is little more than a get together of old Empire colonial era countries. Great for trade cross talking but nothing more. Wouldn't be surprised if it dissolves after QEII dies.

Australia is a G20 nation...It is well capable of surviving on its own.

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But...Wales

Yes, Wales may need to look west to the EU rather than east to England.

Let's be real here though, England's football team hasn't been a real factor in international matches in decades lol. No way in hell they would have won this event, but it is rather shocking they lost to Iceland!

So just saw this article. Apparently there is renewed interest in Australia to leave the Commonwealth because of the Brexit vote. Highly doubt anything will come of it before Northern Ireland and Scotland decide what to do from here on out. But hell, you never know!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/27/brexit-boosts-calls-for-australia-to-leave-the-commonwealth/

That's a very Telegraph article- always original in its choice of bad news.

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'Take back control': Sadiq Khan calls for more powers for London to protect capital after Brexit vote

The Mayor issued a demand for more tax-raising powers "right now" as well as far-reaching command of public services.

His devolution wish-list stopped short of calling for London, the only English region to vote to stay within the EU, as a city-state.

But he stressed the extra powers would be necessary to protect the capital's economy, jobs and prosperity from the uncertainty of Brexit ahead.

They include greater financial autonomy, as well as wide-ranging control over business and skills, housing and planning, transport, health and criminal justice.

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Ugly sniping in the European Parliament today...

I hope all the smug "OUTIES" rubbing it in, mainly Farage (who got jeers), realize a place in history has been made for them.

Scotland's representative desperately pleading to the EU not to forget that they overwhelmingly voted STAY (receveing cheers) for when the unavoidable and inevitable happens...Scotland will need help.

As for all those boofheads that have risen up out of the sewers and taking advantage of raw nerves... The rest of the world IS watching you.

Out of interest...CAN greater London City become a functioning Eurozone? But still within the power of Westminster?

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Farage always brings with him a certain amount of the 'yah-boo' style of politics that is so often typical of the Westminster Parliament he has unsuccessfully sought to be elected to on several occasions. But, when you cut through the bluster and jibes that littered his speech this morning, he was making a similar argument to the one I put forward in this thread last night that the dream of full political union is now dead. The question is whether the EU leadership is prepared to accept that and undertake the task of meaningful reform. Everything we have heard since Friday suggests that they are not.

Where I disagree with Farage is on his argument that we should invoke Article 50 immediately. I don't believe it makes any sense for us to do that because, with a new prime minister to be elected in early September and the main opposition party facing a leadership challenge seemingly at any moment, we are nowhere near a coherent position on what we actually want from the negotiations to take place. I would much rather us wait and have a fully-developed plan and then go from there. That may make negotiations more difficult, but I see that as a lesser risk than going ahead now and ending up with a bad deal. Ultimately, it is in all our interests to work constructively together. Similarly, it makes sense for representatives of the areas and nations which voted to remain to have a full part in developing that position. One thing that Johnson did get right is the need for the Leave side to try to bring those of us who voted the other way into the process.

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I'm still reeling from the chaos. I voted remain in the hope the UK could contribute to the EU reform process which is now inevitable. It's such a shame we've put ourselves in this hideous position. There is something stirring in the UK but it's not faccism. The political parties as we know them are finished. The conservatives don't realise it yet but they're finished. The Labour Party is also finished and is in the midst of committing suicide as I write. The truth is people are waiting for someone to inspire some kind of authentic and manageable change but we're stuck with the most mediocre set of politicians anywhere in the western world. I guess Europe is frustrated but there's no point in talking to a country that is so schizophrenic at the moment.

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The irony Ripley is that your signature picture pretty much sums up UK right now - Political anarchy.

I'd say the Conservative Party will pull a snap election sooner rather than later. Also I believe Cameron will step down shortly.

Of the two main parties, they have it more together... Should take advantage of an imploded Labour Party.

As for everyday running of day to day maters...enjoy Summer...A cold Winter is coming.

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I'm still reeling from the chaos. I voted remain in the hope the UK could contribute to the EU reform process which is now inevitable. It's such a shame we've put ourselves in this hideous position. There is something stirring in the UK but it's not faccism. The political parties as we know them are finished. The conservatives don't realise it yet but they're finished. The Labour Party is also finished and is in the midst of committing suicide as I write. The truth is people are waiting for someone to inspire some kind of authentic and manageable change but we're stuck with the most mediocre set of politicians anywhere in the western world. I guess Europe is frustrated but there's no point in talking to a country that is so schizophrenic at the moment.

Let's just hope and pray those 'someones' don't turn out to be Johnson and Farage! The frightening thing is that the majority of the country seems to have turned to THEM for political leadership in the last few days!!!

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The truth is people are waiting for someone to inspire some kind of authentic and manageable change but we're stuck with the most mediocre set of politicians anywhere in the western world.

The UK isn't alone there. All over Europe, mediocre and/or self-serving politicians are in charge now. Which is why we are all together in this mess.

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I'm maybe in denial but I suspect and hope we may not end up leaving the EU - the British are not Russians in the sense that they won't put up with economic hardship just to follow an idea or principle - our pragmatic streak will kick in pretty quickly and then Boris and friends will be swept away in a wave of discontent. This is why I think the conservatives are finished. They have massively overestimated how much the public actually care about the EU. It's austerity that has caused this mess, not the EU. The EU is fundamentally flawed though. Junker should go but he is not accountable to national electorates and there you have the basic flaw. Any other "president" who oversaw the loss of a member state would resign or be held to account in some way - but he's untouchable. Junker never even visited the uk during his presidential campaign - again that should be unthinkable - like Clinton not bothering to visit California during her campaign.

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Scottish leader today meeting European Parliament President......hopefully getting support for Independence preparations...

It is actually hilarious how some people are holding up Sturgeon and the SNP as some bastions of sanity and unity given that their 2014 Independence project was based on the same "have your cake and eat" it rhetoric the LEAVE camp engaged in.

If ScotNats had won their referendum in 2014 Salmond would be reneging on his promises the same way Johnson is now. For Johnson's £350m extra on the NHS read Salmond's Sovereign Wealth fund combined with tax cuts and extra spending on public services (he actually promised all three!!). Salmond and his party would be in hock to a UK in no mood to give it a good deal in the same way the UK is now in hock to the EU. The huge oil price drop combined with the existing deficit would have left Scotland with huge debts or much greater austerity.

The only difference between this referendum and the last one is the nationalists in Scotland were lucky enough to lose their referendum so were never outed. They never had to deal with the practical reality of their nonsensical promises.

It actually makes me angry to see otherwise sane people this week holding the SNP and its leader up as some kind of model when in reality its politics is from the same book of nationalistic con-artistry as the anti-EU campaigners'.

Edited by Rob.
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The planets are not exactly perfectly aligned for Scottish independence - I think there should be another inde ref and as a Scot I would certainly consider moving back there if it looked like Scotland would be a success in the EU, but the economic and social reality of a customs border between England and Scotland is just too horrible to contemplate. Scotland would be separated from an english speaking country of 60 million where 90% of its exports go. That would change over time, but I suspect that unless England remains in the single market Scotland would experience extreme financial hardship - especially with a 40% deficit and falling oil receipts. I can't really see there's any sense in a hybrid relationship - as EU is telling the UK - out is out and so it would be for Scotland and the UK. Will Scotland accept the Euro and the severe austerity to get the budget deficit under 3% of GDP. They call Edinburgh the Athens of the North - Scotland may well be the Greece of the North if it gets independence. No, I'm afraid there are no easy choices now - running from the UK into the arms of the EU is not going to be a straight forward release from this disaster.

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Team Leave doesn't seem to have any sort of plan for actually leaving. It's just "vote, then make it up as we go along."

Did this come up much in the debate around the referendum? Everything I saw (which is limited in the US) was the benefits of being in the EU vs the benefits of not being in the EU. Nothing on the how you actually leave and the pain of transition.

You guys are right about Scotland. They didn't have an actual plan for independence either. And with England leaving the EU, it just get's so much more messy.

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I2qexuJ.jpg

That's all possible, but what it fails to reflect is the ability for the money men in London to work around barriers to access. What we may see are banks moving their HQ functions to Paris / Dublin / Frankfurt or wherever, but the british government and finance industry will be much freerer to be pragmatic and creative. Any EU deal will not include financial services or not so much, which will give the EU limited leverage over UK policy and regulation in this area.

This could lead to a spiral of additional regulation in the EU which will kill off any gains and lead to arguments within the EU about market regulation and its impact on diverse national economies and priorities. Can't imagine France and club med countries wanting to hold back on things like bankers pay etc. The UK in the end will be a loser in this scenario because finance jobs won't necessarily be recreated in London or UK to escape the regulation - they will just disappear altogether. In some respects this will force the rebalancing of the UK economy away from reliance on banking and financial services, which can only be a good thing - but painful in the short / medium term.

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I'm maybe in denial but I suspect and hope we may not end up leaving the EU - the British are not Russians in the sense that they won't put up with economic hardship just to follow an idea or principle - our pragmatic streak will kick in pretty quickly and then Boris and friends will be swept away in a wave of discontent. This is why I think the conservatives are finished. They have massively overestimated how much the public actually care about the EU. It's austerity that has caused this mess, not the EU. The EU is fundamentally flawed though. Junker should go but he is not accountable to national electorates and there you have the basic flaw. Any other "president" who oversaw the loss of a member state would resign or be held to account in some way - but he's untouchable. Junker never even visited the uk during his presidential campaign - again that should be unthinkable - like Clinton not bothering to visit California during her campaign.

I so wish that pragmatic streak had kicked in during the referendum. Then we wouldn't be having to ask all these questions and wondering what the future now holds for us and the rest of Europe! :wacko:

Edited by Mainad
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David Cameron deserves a hell of a lot more respect than that. He is the one political leader who has had the courage to face up to the anti-EU movement and engaging with the issue. If his predecessors had done so a lot earlier, we would not be in this position now.

While I agree that this disaster was in the making way before Cameron took office, I couldn't disagree stronger with the notion that Cameron acted "courageously". In fact, he played a false play: First, he nourished the Eurosceptic feelings of large parts of his party, nagging about the EU for years - just to become the standard bearer of the Leave campaign in the last few months before the referendum. If instead, he had stood up against his parliamentary party and said: "You can expect a referendum on such a crap.py and plainly stupid idea like leaving the EU only over my dead body", now that would have been courageous! But no, he hoped to get the best of both worlds: the benefits of staying in the EU and keeping his job, even after having destroyed the EU's reputation among many of his fellow countrymen even further over the course of several years. Bad idea, mate, really bad idea.

Instead, Britain experienced an awful week since the referendum - and that's why I'm still disappointed and angry as hell about this senseless decision, even one week later. "I hate to see Britain in decline" - those were Margaret Thatcher's words when Britain was the "sick man of Europe" in 1979. And now I share her sentiment, even if it came from a different political motivation and ideology than mine, while Britain turns to become the "sick man of Europe" again. Even if the auspices are somewhat different than 37 years ago, Britain now is not as strong as it could be. Large parts of its electorate believed in blatant lies ("Let's give the 350 million pounds to the NHS instead", "Let's take control of our borders again", "Let's use the benefits of the free world, we don't need the Common Market") made by political clowns who have absolutely no clue how to manage the Brexit negotiations with the EU. It hurts to see that a growing number of Brits seem to realise how they were betrayed, and even the yellow press which was very much pro-Brexit before the referendum seems to be appalled and to turn to a more differentiated and even critical view towards the Brexit. This is what I criticised one week ago: Britain (or at least those parts of its electorate who voted "Leave") is belittling itself, while it actually could be the respected and strong international partner it has been for so many years.

What an utter shame!

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I talked this week with a colleague of mine, who is British, but lives in Germany for many years - he has no residence in the UK and therewith he was not allowed to register for the referendum.

He was really annoyed that he was not able to cast his vote, but is directly affected by a Brexit, due he is British citizen - he told me that 2 Mio British citizens in the EU were concerned by this "not-allowed-to-vote" situation...

Since the referendum he is in an emotional emergency mode.

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